


little more than kin, little less than kind

by GrimAndGroovy



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: AH THAT TAG IS HILARIOUS, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Animal Death, Brotherly Love, Clay | Dream Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Dream Team SMP Spoilers, Dysfunctional Family, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Immortal Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Manipulative Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Mild Blood, Platonic Relationships, Protective Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Soft Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), does this mean dream is technically ranboo's dad? no technically they're twins, dont ask me how that works i dont know either, god what do i tag this as, this isn't even like a theory it's just like an au that could be cannon, weird prose origin story stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29454162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimAndGroovy/pseuds/GrimAndGroovy
Summary: "The boy was born under a moonless sky. A sky with no stars, no clouds. It was a hollow and lightless world, and the first thing his eyes saw was a smile."Dream isn't human, and because of this, he can split his soul into pieces. In the End, he finds an egg, and in that egg, he puts a piece of his soul.This is what happens next.(The title is a Hamlet quote yes I am pretentious and what is Ranboo if not a Hamlet archetype)
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 119
Kudos: 504





	1. The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns

The boy was born under a moonless sky. A sky with no stars, no clouds. It was a hollow and lightless world, and the first thing his eyes saw was a smile. 

Dream had been waiting for a long while. Waiting was not so hard when you quite literally had all the time in the world, but he was growing impatient. 

After he slew the dragon, he found it. Gleaming black obsidian, warm like there was something stirring inside it. 

An egg. 

He frowned. Nothing he had read had made any mention of an egg. He assumed it was the dragon’s, though that assumption was a far-reaching one. The ender dragon was the only one of its kind. A kind that, thanks to Dream, was now most assuredly extinct. 

Yet, there it was. Gleaming obsidian. A wealth of possibilities swirled in his mind, what would happen when it hatched? Would it even hatch? When? What, if not a dragon, would crawl out of that broken black shell? What was so fragile it needed to be born in obsidian? 

Those answers never came. He decided to never allow them to. 

Dream raised his pickaxe. He swung, the blade bouncing off the shell with a metallic sound. He swung again. And again. After a few more minutes it became evident that this egg, whatever it was, wasn’t cracking. 

He would learn later that there in fact was no way to crack this particular egg. 

There was, however, a way to manipulate it. 

It was something he had learned long ago, that souls were not fragile things. They would be bent and twisted and broken many times over before they succumbed to darkness. They took many forms, they had many shapes. Human souls were invaluable, they were something like light made manifest. All the enduring power of hope and faith and warm feeling of the sun was born alongside these creatures. Dream had grown to appreciate them. 

His own soul, however, was a different story. 

As long as Dream had lived, and it was quite a long time, he had not met another one like him. As far as he knew, he was the last of his kind. There was the pesky traveler, who for a while Dream thought could possibly be like him. But the traveler could bleed. The traveler could age. He learned this after seeing him a few times and noticing that once, he was younger than he had been before. No, the traveler was not like him. Just another human with another sunlight-soul. 

Dream’s soul was something he could take and hold in the palm of his hand. He could bend it and shape it and split it into pieces. More importantly, he could take it and press it into things. He’d done this before, every time the item broke the piece of soul he’d imbued it with would simply come flocking back to him. And he would feel the same. 

His soul was like he was. It never broke, never died or aged. But it changed. And it would change. 

He had never, not once before, put his soul into a living thing. 

The egg was supposedly alive. When Dream pressed his ear to it, he could hear a thrumming, the beat of a heart. 

He took the egg with him when he left, and behind him, he left a world, more void than anything else. 

For a long while, the egg simply sat. It was a trophy. It was a mystery. He kept it with him, through every home and every land he traveled. It was a remarkable thing, how even after decades, there was still a gentle thrum of a heart-beat.

It was a possibility. It was a void, much like where the egg had been found. There was nothing inside it but potential. Potential that Dream so desperately wanted to take hold of.

He wasn’t sure what prompted him to do it. What made him take his soul, and split it in half as he had done so many times before. What made him take that half in the palm of his hand, and press it into the obsidian shell. Perhaps it was simply to see what would happen. Perhaps it was an attempt to make something like him, something- someone who could understand. What would come of it? A monster? A man? 

His soul split so easily, and it fell so easily into that void. 

It took a long while before he had the idea to bring it back to where it came from. 

It took another nine months before the egg began to stir. 

The boy was born under a moonless sky. A sky with no stars, no clouds. It was a hollow and lightless world, and the first thing his eyes saw was a smile. 

The problem arises when Dream realizes he doesn’t know how to take care of a child in the slightest. He didn’t know what he thought would come of this. A monster? A man? Not a baby, that’s for sure. The problem worsens when the child starts crying, a terrible wailing sound. 

Dream sheds his cloak and wraps the infant in the soft green fabric. He’s not sure what to do beyond that. He doesn’t want this. He realizes that soon after. The endermen are taking notice of the child, and Dream wants nothing to do with them. He wants nothing to do with the child, either. 

He considers doing something to kill it, something quick and painless. Dream is nothing if not merciful, he tells himself. But the child looks up at him, with red and green heterochromatic eyes, an even split of white and black down his face, and Dream recognizes that green eye. It pulls at something within him, some instinct long forgotten. Some feeling worn down by the sands of time. 

Family. 

There might have been life within that egg once, but now whatever it was is also half of him. He is half of this boy, and there is no getting around that fact. 

He wraps the infant tighter in his cloak.


	2. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly can't believe this got as much attention as it did, so thanks omg  
> also FYI this fic is going to be maybe a little over twenty chapters, I have thirteen of them outlined so far and about four written. The chapters will be kind of short in the beginning, but get longer as we get more into the story! so yeehaw strap urselves in

“You owe me a favor” Dream yells as he knocks on the cabin door. “Open up” 

“Go away!” The old woman yells “I owe you nothing”

“Oh ho, yes you do!” Dream says “Who got you all that blaze powder?” 

“...You”

“And who got rid of your endermite problem?” 

“You. I see your point-” 

“And who, praytell-

The door swings open. An old woman stands there, grey hair drawn back into a braid. 

“You” Agnes sneers. “What do you want?”

“You owe me a favor” Dream says “And here it is” 

He pushes the sleeping baby into Agnes’ arms. 

“My gods,” She says “What is this?” 

“A baby” Dream says as if it is obvious. 

“This is...like no child I have seen” Agnes cradles it, already more competent than Dream was. In the few weeks, it took to get to the woman's cottage Dream was already considering the fact the child might die of malnourishment. He was constantly hungry, yet refused any food. He slept often, yet was always tired. Infants were too confusing, Dream had decided. And besides, he wasn’t nurturing. He was merciful. Perhaps. But he didn’t have a paternal bone in his body. He wasn’t quite sure what parents were meant to do, really, never having any of his own. 

Once, when they were taking shelter under a tree during the rain, Dream sang an old lullaby. 

After that, it was the only thing that got the baby to sleep. 

“Is it...yours?” She asks. 

This is a complicated question. In some ways, yes? In others, no. Absolutely not. It is his soul that fertilized the egg, that took the possibility that was stored inside it and made it manifest into...something. It’s still a complicated question. Does that make him the child’s father? They have the same soul, are they brothers? The same person? He doesn’t know. 

“No” Dream replies in the end. “I know his parents” 

“Oh?” Agnes starts to walk inside. Dream follows her. The inside of the cottage is warm and comfortable. It’s a good enough place to dump a child. A large expanse of woods, a babbling brook somewhere near. It’s like a fairy-tale. 

“And who are they?” 

“...Nobody”

“And you want me to what, Take this child? Raise it?” 

“That was what I had in mind, yes” 

Agnes throws a wooden spoon at him. It bounces off his arm. 

“No!” She thrusts the child back into Dream’s arms “I’ve already buried my own children I'm too old to be a mother again!” 

The child is crying. Dream struggles to comfort him. It had happened a few times on their journey. The best Dream knew was to shush and rock him gently. He wasn’t very good at either of those things. 

“And what is that thing anyway?” Agnes continues. She’s flustered now, like a puffed-up bird. “What monster made that?”

Me. Dream thinks “He...isn’t quite human” 

“I can see that” 

“I believe he’s half enderman” 

“Enderman?” Agnes says. “Gods above. What’s the other half, then?” 

Dream is silent. He can’t tell her. He doesn’t trust her. 

“I’m not sure.” 

“You’re not sure? I thought you said you knew the parents!” 

Gods, he needed to get his story straight. 

“He’s an orphan. I knew his parents in passing, I don’t know what they did to make him but, whatever it was...It apparently didn’t end well” 

Agnes raised an eyebrow. “And after that you want me to take him?”

“You owe me” Dream stated simply. 

“I don’t owe you that much.” 

“He’s an orphan, Agnes.” Dream said, forcing a croak of desperation into his voice. He sees a shine of sympathy in her eyes and decides to push a little further. “I don’t know how to take care of him. And he can’t come with me, he’s just a baby.”

“...You tend to wander, don’t you?” Agnes says. 

Dream smiles, knowing she can’t see it. “That’s not a good life for a child.”

“Don’t you know anyone else?” 

“You’re my best bet” Dream answers. She’s not. She was the most convenient.

Agnes is a pseudo-witch. Nothing like the witches before the burning ages, who Dream found particularly helpful, but an old woman who lived in the woods and brewed potions and did occasionally enchantments. He had come to her because he knew she had a soft spot for children after the death of her infant son. 

Dream had lived long enough to know not only how to manipulate souls, but hearts as well. 

“Hm” Agnes hums “Don’t flatter me, boy, I know your games” 

But Dream knows she’s moved. Bit by bit. He’s played this conversation over many times. 

“If you don’t take him, I don’t know what I’ll do with him,” Dream says. 

Agnes waves her hand “Throw that thing to the wolves for all I care.” 

She does care. Mortals are so fickle about these things. Always fawning over new life. As if it doesn’t come and go like the rise and fall of the sun. 

“Agnes” Dream says “You’re a good person. A good mother. You’re the only one I would have gone to for this-I trust you to take care of him”

Agnes crosses her arms. Taps her foot. 

“Please,” He says. 

“I can’t take him,” She says. 

Him. She didn’t call him it. Dream smiles a little. He’s winning her over, bit by bit. 

“I don’t know where else I can go-” Dream says. He lets his eyes water. Plays the part of a pitiful young man. It's a role he's taken many times over, particularly when he has to deal with Agnes. 

“I said I can’t-” 

“Please” 

There’s a long silence after that.

Agnes wordlessly takes the crying child from his arms. She rocks him gently, hushes him softly. The child is asleep in a matter of minutes. He thinks he sees her smile. 

“He’s much better when he’s not screaming,” She says. “Almost human”

Dream leaves without saying goodbye. Under his mask, he grins. 

***

It is three years before he sees the boy again. 

It’s only when he meets the brook that he realizes where he is. He’s come back from the nether, clothes singed and with a few dozen blaze rods in his pack. The path to the location of his next deal cuts through these woods. He would have simply kept walking if it weren’t for the tug on his cloak. 

He turns, hand on his sword, to see a pair of two-toned eyes watching him. The boy isn’t an infant anymore, but he’s hardly more than a toddler. His green eye is still the same shade as Dream’s eyes. His hair is long now, sticking up in random places. 

The boy doesn’t say anything. He just stares. 

“Go away,” Dream says. 

The boy smiles. He has fangs. 

“Where’s your mother?” 

The boy points to the edge of the woods. 

“Okay then. Run along” Dream pushes him slightly with his hand. 

The boy lifts his arms, makes a grabbing motion with his hands. 

“Go away” Dream repeats. 

The boy stares up at him. Points towards the edge of the woods again. Grabs at the air, like he wants Dream to carry him. 

Dream wonders if he looked like that as a child, all large eyes and wispy hair. He frowns, sighs.

“Fine” He lifts the boy, holds him close with one arm, and beats back the branches and vines that block their route with his other hand. The boy is still grinning at him, Dream doesn’t like it in the slightest. 

They make it back to the cottage. Agnes is there, on the steps. It’s autumn and the wind blows across her yard, towards the garden where pumpkins grow. 

“Found something of yours” Dream calls to her. He gently sets the child down, and the boy takes off running. He stumbles and falls midway across the yard. Subconsciously Dream lifts a hand as if to stop him, but the child gets up and keeps running before he can do anything. He makes it to Agnes and clings to her skirts. 

“Finally come to see him, eh?” Agnes says. Dream walks up to the house and tilts his head skeptically. 

“He’s grown” 

“Children tend to do that”

“What’s his name?” 

“Doesn’t have one” 

That makes Dream pause. “What?” 

“It’s not like there are any other children around,” Agnes says. 

“A boy needs a name” 

“And what do you care?” 

She was right. Why did he care? He furrowed his brows. He didn’t. He did. He shouldn’t, but he did. Despite weathering century after century of tragedy, he still had a heart. Some people would say he didn’t. But they were wrong. He wished they weren’t. 

“Nevermind” Dream said. He turned heel and began to walk away. 

“You’re leaving?” Agnes asked. 

“I’m not staying” Dream replied simply. He couldn’t stay. Not for a second longer. 

He made the mistake of turning back. It was something he would curse himself for long after. He turned to look over his shoulder, and saw Agnes with her back turned, opening the front door of the cottage. Standing on the step, still staring at him, was the boy. He smiled and waved a small hand at him. 

Dream kept walking.


	3. Our wills and fates do so contrary run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a wholesome chapter before impending angst :)

It was yet another two years before he saw the boy again. 

He tried to avoid Agnes’s house. Tried to find other people who could do what she did. There were other potion makers, other enchanters, Of course, but they were few and far between. The burning ages of this world had taken some of his most valuable connections, he would never forgive the humans for that. 

The woods are, in the end, familiar to him. He trudges through the underbrush, not worried about attracting any monster or other beast. He’s the most dangerous thing for miles. 

It’s a few hours into the journey, that he starts to see things. A tuft of white hair disappears behind a tree. A snapped branch in a tree just high enough for a child to climb. There is a sound like an enderman when he comes too close to a boulder just big enough for a child to hide behind, and spiraling lines drawn in the sand. Dream crouches down by the shore. He traces the lines, then traces some letters, writing his own name with his index finger. 

Dream hears the boy before he sees him. He hears the soft rustling of ferns disturbed by tiny feet. Then, a small voice. 

“Hello,” The boy says. Dream turns to look at him. He’s taller. Some of the baby fat he’d had as a toddler is gone. For a moment Dream can see the gangly young man he’ll turn out to be if he keeps growing at the rate he is. He stares at Dream with those same red and green eyes. He shouldn’t be surprised at the things that stay the same any more than the things that change about him, but he is.

Something about it makes him sad, makes him wish he could have watched him grow, watched him learn how to walk and talk. Dream doesn’t remember his childhood. His memories of the last centuries are clear as a mountain stream, but his beginnings are lost to him. The boy is all he has as an example. He’s a mirror, a reflection of what Dream might have been at that age. 

“Who’re you?” The boy asks. Dream tilts his head. Says nothing. 

The boy also says nothing. 

“Can you read it?” He finally asks, pointing towards the letters in the sand. 

There’s a long stretch of silence. 

“Yes,” Dream replied, because he knows the boy can’t, and he likes knowing things others don’t. 

The boy’s eyes light up. He grabs a fistful of Dream’s cloak, and tugs on it. 

“What’s your name?” He asks. Dream is surprised he knows what a name is. 

“Dream,” He says. The child is grinning now. 

“Dream” The boy parrots. 

“Where’s your mother?” Dream asks. 

The boy shrugs, an exaggerated gesture Dream knows he’s copying from Agnes. “Busy”

“Busy?” Dream frowns. He never expected Agnes to be a great mother, but he was sure she knew better than to leave a five-year-old alone in the woods. 

“Gone” He amends 

Dream is silent. “And where did she go?” 

“Town” 

Of course. 

“The woods are no place for a child to wander alone” Dream states “Come on, time to go home” 

The boy shakes his head, then points to the bank “Teach me” 

“Teach you what?” 

“The letters” The boy picks up a stick. 

“I can’t teach you that” Dream insists. 

“But you can read” The child stomps his foot “Teach me!” 

To his credit, his little tantrum does earn a chuckle from Dream. 

“Alright then,” He says. “What’s your name?” 

The boy pauses for a second. He shrugs again. 

“No name?” Dream asks. 

The boy shakes his head. It makes Dream's heart twist a bit. He ignores it. 

Dream sighs. “Here, give me that stick” 

The boy hands it to him. 

“Ender is written backward. That means learning any language after this one is going to be more difficult. You understand that?” 

The boy nods enthusiastically. Dream taps his stick on the ground. 

“Alright then. Give me a word” 

They spend the afternoon making a list. Dream will write a word, and the boy will trace it over and over until Dream pats the sand down, and they start again. Dream sounds out the words for the boy and makes simple sentences from them. The words the boy suggests are like a looking-glass into his mind. "Night, mother, green, monster, water, red-" and at one point he simply says “potato” which earns another chuckle from Dream. 

“Is that your favorite food?” He asks. 

The boy nods, and smiles. He’s missing one of his fangs, Dream is confused for a brief moment before he remembers that some endermen go through up to nine sets of teeth in their life. He assumes this is the first. 

The last word they learn surprises him. 

“Dream,” The boy says. 

“Yes?” Dream replies 

“No” The boy shakes his head and points at the sand “Dream” 

The boy wants to know how to write his name. Dream wonders if he knows. If he knows that he and Dream share a soul. He wonders. 

And then he writes his name.


	4. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream, busting down the door, bleeding from multiple arrow wounds: WHERE IS MY BOY

The seasons come and go, a year passes before the boy sees Dream again. But Dream sees him. 

He passes through the woods and by the cottage, sees a half enderman-boy digging up a garden. Sees him tracing words over and over in the sand. He finds half-made forts constructed from sticks and laid with old blankets. He finds clumps of grass dug up and placed elsewhere. The whole forest carries signs of him. 

He wants to avoid the cottage itself at all costs.

First of all, Dream doesn’t want to talk to Agnes. The woman is painful to speak to, and he wants to interact with her as little as possible. 

Secondly, he doesn’t want to get attached. 

The boy might be half of him, but that does not change the fact that he is a child, or that he is seemingly mortal. Or that Dream has lived his whole life with only passing companionship, and he certainly does not need anything as close as a family. Attachment means connection, connection means he gets tied down.

In the end, it is desperation that drives him to the cottage. 

It was foolish, really, to make the journey during the night. He’s immortal, after all, not invulnerable. 

This was how Dream ended up with one arrow in his stomach, another in his knee, and a few he pulled from his right arm. It won’t kill him. He knows it won’t, but some animal part of him responds to the pain, and he runs. He staggers through the woods, crashing through the underbrush. He comes all the way to a clearing and sees the yellow lights of candles in a window. It is spring, and the sun is setting later. 

He knows it’s a bad idea. Knows that every time he comes here he only gets more attached. 

But what choice does he have? 

What choice did he give himself? He knows that some part of him did this on purpose. Some part of him knows he could have retreated deeper into the woods to lick his wounds alone. But he wants to see him. He’ll take any excuse to see how much he’s grown. 

Dream stumbles through the clearing, up to the door of the cottage, which he bashes in with his shoulder. He lands hard on the wooden floor. The grey-haired woman sitting by the fire gasps in shock. 

***

Dream, as ironic as he finds it, doesn’t need sleep. He might want it or even choose to sleep, but he doesn’t need it. He can, but he’s gone years without sleeping before. It makes no difference to him whether or not he gets rest, but occasionally, when his mind and body are spent, he’ll let his brain shut off for a brief spell. 

Even then, he does not dream. 

His existence is full of ironies. 

Either way. He usually tries not to sleep. He'll sleep to pass time. Or to appear human 

Or, when he’s bleeding out of multiple wounds, and the pain makes his usually clear head cloudy, he’ll have a little rest. Just to ignore the pain. But not always. 

This is why when Dream wakes up in a bed that is not his own, he’s surprised. He tries not to stay in one place for long, but still, this surprises him. He is in a small room, and from the smell of herbs, he knows it’s Agnes’. Dried flowers hang from the ceiling, and glass beads strung beside the window cast small rainbows on the wall. What surprises him further is the fact that he can see the boy staring at him, with one small hand on the corner of Dream's mask. 

The boy moves to lift it, and Dream grabs his hand. He yelps, and Dream sighs. 

“And what-” He sits up, wincing slightly “Do you think you’re doing?” 

“I-I’m sorry,” The boy says, stammering. Dream releases his wrist, and the boy takes a few steps back. 

Dream puts a hand to where his wound is. It’s not too bad, not the worst he’d had for sure. He’s ashamed it took him out so quickly. 

“It’s very rude, you know,” Dream says “You should never pry into a man’s business like that” 

The boy is staring at him again. 

“Why do you wear it?” He asks. 

Why? It’s easier when nobody can see your expressions. When no-one sees you smile, or frown, or laugh or cry. No one knows. And no one can sympathize. He likes it that way. He likes the control it gives him over the situation. He knows that his face, unchanged by the years, is something that could be recognized. Something that could tie him to a person. He doesn’t want that. 

He wishes he could tell the boy that if he wants to know what Dream looks like, all he’ll have to do is wait a few years, and look in a mirror. 

They have the same freckles, the same bridge of their nose, the same chin. They could be twins, if not for their age and the fact that one of them was half-enderman. 

“Didn’t I just tell you not to pry?” Dream says. 

The conversation ends just like that. 

The next few days are spent with Dream downing as many healing potions as he can, along with the loaves of bread Agnes forces him to eat, insisting that potions of healing alone will do him more harm than good. 

He doesn’t see the boy for a few days. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t hear of him. 

“He’s much more well-mannered than other children I’ve met, I’ll tell you that much” Agnes says while she’s re-doing his bandages. 

“I don’t speak to many children,” Dream says. 

“Of course not.” Agnes replies “He’s smarter as well. The only trouble I’ve gotten from him is he asks too many questions, tries to take things apart to see how they work” 

Then, she produces from her pocket, a compass. She hands it to Dream, who takes it and holds it in the palm of his hand. 

“I don’t know why or how he did that,” Agnes says. “He’s ruined it” 

The compass is broken, he can see that much. It spins and spins, never finding true north. 

This particular compass, he can tell, was enchanted to always point to a lodestone, presumably one near Agnes’ cottage. But even with the enchantment, the compass spins and spins and spins. It doesn’t point north, or in the direction of the lodestone, or anything. 

It spins and spins and spins. 

***

Dream doesn’t sleep. He pretends to get Agnes to stop bothering him. This is how he knows that every night, when the moon is high, the boy creeps into his room and watches him with dual-toned eyes. 

He doesn't know why he does it. The first night, he thinks the boy's going to try to pull his mask off again, and he prepares to lecture him. But he doesn't. He stands beside Dream as he pretends to sleep, and watches him with dual-toned eyes. The second night is the same. Dream keeps his back to the wall, the boy gently opens the door to make as little noise as possible. Nothing happens, not that night. 

The third time it happens, the third night, Dream is packing his bag when the boy gently pushes open the door. 

“He-Hello” He stammers. 

“Hello” Dream replies. He gently nudges the boy out of the way and walks through the door. 

“Are you leaving?” The boy asks. 

“Mhm” Dream hums “Don’t tell your mother” 

“She’s not my mother” 

That makes Dream pause. 

“What?” He turns to look at the boy. He’s standing there, moonlight shining through the warped glass windows of the cottage. It looks like sunlight coming through reflected water. And he looks so small, so fragile. Dream feels a familiar pull in his heart. 

“I don’t think she likes me,” The boy says. 

Dream sighs and takes a few steps towards him. He kneels down to look the boy in the eye. 

“She loves you. She might have an odd way of showing it, sure, but she cares about you” He is lying. He is lying and he knows it. Agnes might look after this boy, but nothing will fix the hole in her life made by the loss of a child. Children are not goods to be bought and sold, one thing traded for another. 

“No” The boy shakes his head “She hates me” 

His voice wobbles. Is he crying? The boy winces as a tear runs down his cheek. Dream reaches out his hand and places it gently on the boy’s shoulder. The boy rubs his face with his sleeve. 

“That’s not true,” He says “She loves you” 

Liar. Liar. Liar. 

He never used to feel this guilt after telling a lie. He did it so often, it was so necessary for him, how could he not lie? When you have lived a thousand lives, you learn to lie so easily and so often. But this boy is half of him, can’t he tell? Can’t he tell when his doppelganger is lying to him? 

If he does, he doesn’t say. 

“Okay,” The boy replies in a shaky voice. 

“Alright,” Dream says. “Goodbye” 

He starts to walk away, and the boy grabs his cloak. 

“Wait!” he says “When are you coming back?” 

What should he say? That he would come back tomorrow if he could? That he would stay forever, to watch this boy grow? But staying means connection. It means watching an entire life play out right before his eyes. It means watching a life begin and end in the blink of an eye. 

(Years later he will dig a grave in the yard. The earth will yield to him, as it always has. There will be allium flowers placed on a grave far too shallow) 

No, no. He can’t. He can’t stay, because if he stays he’ll get attached. More attached. More invested in this boy born under a moonless sky. More than he already is. He wishes he could say he's kept his distance, did all he could to stay away, but he's told far too many lies tonight. 

In the moonlight, he catches a glimpse of the boy’s soul. If human souls are sunlight, and his own soul is the night, then the boy’s soul is an eclipse. He can see a halo of it, a bright golden crown around the edges. 

“...Goodnight,” He says. 

The night welcomes him into the dark like an old friend, and he is gone before the moon has set.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeee i wish i could say the next chapter is less sad but uh, it's not.


	5. Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tw for animal death right at the end of this chapter, If that's triggering or upsetting to you at all then you can probably skip over it without losing much of the plot! the actual scene starts around the line " The boy needs to learn." and ends at the end of the chapter, but the implications of it start around the line "You have goats,” He says “Where are they?”
> 
> Stay safe, I know that kind of stuff can be upsetting but hopefully, this makes it easier to skip over

The thing about immortality is that it’s easy to lose track of the days. Days, weeks, months, years, they blur together. The hours get jumbled. The minutes are lost to him, and seconds follow soon after. He remembers it all, his memory is flawless but sometimes it seems to him that time is sand, slipping through his fingers. 

He’s reminded of an old story of a man who cheated death. His punishment was to forever roll a boulder up a hill, and when he reached the top, he’d start over. That’s what it’s like. To live life over and over, repeating the same actions a thousand times over. 

To do things the exact same way and expect a different outcome is the definition of madness. 

Dream supposes his long life must have driven him insane. 

There is no other way to justify his return to the cottage. 

There are goats milling about. Those are new. The buck comes up to him and butts his leg with its horns. Dream nudges it gently out of the way with his foot, and it bleats at him. There are about nine of them, a bunch of does and one buck. He guesses they’re for milk, though you can’t get by without slaughtering a few at the very least, he assumes. 

He knocks on the door, and it swings open almost immediately. 

“You” Agnes narrows her eyes. “And what happened? Is it infected?” 

Dream is confused for a brief moment. Then he remembers that a few months ago he came to this house with an arrow in his side. The wound is gone now, healed over and scarred. He carries a lot of scars with him, another one of the perks of immortality, he supposes. 

“No, I’m fine,” He says. 

Agnes frowns. “He’s in the forest” She waves a hand, and turns her back on him. He follows her into the cottage, shutting the door behind him. Outside, the beginnings of winter are starting to stir. There’s a cold chill in the air, and the clouds hang low and grey in the sky, waiting for snow. 

But inside, the cottage is warm. It’s a small house with not much more than a kitchen and a fireplace, a cot piled with blankets, he can tell that’s where the boy sleeps based on the trinkets gathered around it. There’s a broken clock, a few river stones made smooth by constant running water, and old glass bottles that shine with sunlight and cast flecks of colored light on the floor 

“You shouldn’t let him wander alone out there.” 

“Why? He always comes back” 

“It’s not safe for a child” 

Agnes turns on him with a glint in her eye. 

“So you do care,” She says. 

Dream furrows his brows. “The boy isn’t my responsibility anymore, but I still have a promise to keep to his parents” 

“And what promise is that?” Agnes smiles a skeptical smile. 

What is it? A promise to himself? A promise he made, holding an infant under the shelter of a broad-leafed tree, singing an ancient lullaby. A promise he made feeling that first tug on his cloak. A promise he made tracing letters in the sand. A promise he made when he saw those dual-toned eyes and a golden halo of a soul. 

Or was it earlier? When he killed the dragon? When he held that egg pressed his ear to it and heard the beat of a heart, carried it with him for years? When he took his soul and pressed it into the obsidian shell? 

How do you define the beginning of a bond? 

“I said I'd look out for him,” Dream replies simply. 

“And since when do you keep your promises?” 

“This one is important” 

“You mean he’s important” 

“Who’s important?” 

Dream turned to see the boy, standing with a bundle of sticks in his arms. He looks over the sticks, sees Dream standing there, drops them, and runs towards him. Before Dream can do anything, the boy's arms are around him in a hug. 

Dream is stunned for a moment. Agne is saying something about the sticks. She shuffles past him, glaring. 

“...Hey there” He awkwardly pats the boy’s shoulder. He’s gotten taller, he comes up a little bit higher than Dream’s hip. “What’s…”

The boy looks up at him, he’s smiling. He has both fangs now, and they’re a tad longer. 

“If you’re finished, you can come pick these up,” Agnes says “Before the nether freezes over.” 

“Sorry,” the boy says. He couches down to gather up the sticks. Dream sighs and leans down to help him. They bundle the sticks back up and deposit them in the fireplace. 

He starts a fire at Agnes’s insistence. The boy sits beside him, his legs pulled up to his chest like he’s trying to seem smaller than he actually is. Dream tries to ignore his presence as he strikes the flint and steel. The cottage is uncomfortably quiet. Behind them, Dream can hear potions bubbling, and the creek and then shut of a door, a gust of cold wind. Agnes has gone out into the garden, and he is once again alone with the boy. 

“...Where were you?” The boy asks. 

Dream shrugs. “I was in a lot of places” 

“What places?” 

He turns to look at the boy. How much has changed? What’s stayed the same? His hair is longer. His eyes are the same. He's taller and lankier and Dream doesn't understand how he changes so much in a matter of years. Years are days, hours, minutes, seconds. He loses track. 

“Hm." This is what he ends up saying " I went to the mountains. Other forests too, and oceans-”

“Oceans?” 

“Like big lakes, but salty” 

“I know what an ocean is” The boy seems almost offended. “They sound scary”

“They are a bit. They’re not too bad when you’re on a ship” Dream replies.

“Did you meet pirates?” 

Dream laughs “There are no pirates anymore” 

“Sea monsters?” 

“No,” Dream says “Nothing out of the ordinary. We saw some dolphins, though” 

The boy seems a little disappointed. There’s a long moment of silence. Dream sighs and slides his pack off his shoulders. The boy watches as he rummages around for something, then pulls out a small book and a pencil. 

“How much do you remember from our first lesson?” Dream asks. 

The boy blinks. “Um...Some of it.” 

“Just some?” Dream tilts his head to the side. His mask hides his gentle smile. 

The boy shrugs. 

Dream opens the book and sets it in front of him. He hands the boy the pencil, and says “Show me what you remember” 

***

Hours later they have pages full of words in both ender and English. Ones he remembers, and new ones Dream has taught him. There is the boy’s shaky handwriting next to Dream’s neat scrawl. Columns and columns of words and sentences, half-written phrases, and tiny pictures. Next to the word “Friend” and its ender counterpart, the boy has drawn a smiley face. 

***

The winter chill has stalled itself for a few days. The brook by the cottage hasn’t yet frozen over, and so the next time he visits, he and the boy sit beside it, drawing letters in the sand. 

Dream was so careful to conserve the paper in the book, but in the end, nothing can stand between that boy and learning more words. So they filled the book, and now they’re outside once more. 

The boy has Dream’s cloak wrapped around his shoulders, and a stick clutched in his small hand. Dream’s trying to teach him some basic grammar, and working on some sentences. Honestly, he’s having to re-teach himself some of it. 

Ender is an ancient language, there’s not many who still speak it besides the endermen. Even then their speech is fragmented, garbled. He’s so focused on the letters, he doesn’t notice the boy leave. When he does, he realizes his sword, which he had set beside his bag on the sand, was gone as well. 

Dream curses under his breath. He stands up and calls out for him. He frowns. There is a thudding noise coming from a few yards away. He heads towards it. 

The boy has his sword, it’s much too large for him to hold steadily, but he’s putting a lot of effort into it. He swings it haphazardly at a tree, carving deep marks into the trunk. 

On the final swing, when he tries to pull it out, it stays in the bark. When he tugs on it, it doesn’t move. He pulls it harder, and it comes out of the tree easily, he stumbles back, dropping the sword onto the ground. It narrowly misses his leg. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Dream says. The boy looks up, startled. 

“I-” 

“Give that back” He snaps. He pushes the boy away and snatches the sword off the ground. 

“Do you know what this is?” He holds up the sword. 

“It’s...a sword”

“Right.” He says “It’s a netherite sword. You know what that is?” 

The boy shakes his head. He seems afraid. Dream feels the slightest bit of guilt. Still, whatever regret he’s feeling is overturned by the anger he feels. He could have been hurt. He could have been killed, then what would all of this had been for? The boy is seven. He ought to have more sense. 

“It’s a rare mineral, you can only find it in the nether” Dream explains. “It’s stronger than anything. This sword could cut you like that” He snaps his finger in the boy’s face for effect, and the child flinches. 

“I was just-”

“You were just what? Hm?” Dream says “This is not a toy, you understand me?”

“I didn’t-” 

“No. No, here. Let this be a lesson” Dream sheaths his sword, and grabs the boy’s arm, and starts dragging him towards the cottage. 

“I-I’m sorry!” The boy tries to say. Dream ignores him. He doesn’t let him go. 

“What’s happened?” Agnes says. She’s standing in the garden, collecting the last of the autumn harvest “What are you doing?” 

“You have goats,” He says “Where are they?” 

Agnes furrows her brows. “They’re around the back-”

Dream doesn’t wait for her to finish. He drags the boy to the back of the house and lets him go once he sees the small gathering of goats. They mill about, grazing idly. 

Dream nods at them. “Pick one.” 

“What?” The boy says. 

“Pick one.” Dream repeats. 

The boy stares for a moment. Then he raises a shaky hand and points towards a light brown doe grazing near the edge of the house. It’s a bit smaller than the rest of the goats. Perhaps it's younger. 

Dream picks it up, holding it under one arm. It bleats for a second, but it’s a domesticated animal, it doesn’t know it should be struggling. 

He carries it aways a bit from the herd. They seem to know what’s coming and keep their distance. 

“Here, hold her for a minute” He sets the goat down, and for a second he doesn't think the boy will listen, but then he wraps his arms around the goat's neck, 

Dream draws his sword. It glints in the sunlight. “This blade was made to cut clean through flesh and bone. It’s a weapon. It’s meant for one thing and one thing only, you understand that?” 

The boy cringes. He knows what’s about to happen. 

“Please-” 

“Now, I want you to watch. I want you to understand.” Dream says. The boy looks away, Dream grabs his hand “Look at me.” 

The boy has tears in his eyes. 

Dream presses the boy’s hand to the goat’s side. 

“Do you feel that? Her heart’s beating.” Dream says. The boy nods, his breathing is shaky. Dream pushes him a few steps away so he’s facing him and the doe from a small distance.

Dream stands again. “Remember that. Remember what her heartbeat felt like under your fingers.” 

“Dream, please don't-” Desperation makes the boy's voice shake, and Dream ignores the pang of sadness in his heart. He needs to do this. The boy needs to learn. 

Dream pulls the animal's head back, grabbing it by the horns to expose its neck. The motion of it is quick, Dream turns his sword and presses it to the goat’s neck. It lets out a desperate bleat, its eyes wild. 

He pulls the blade across its throat, nearly severing its head from its body entirely. Its body spasms once, twice, then goes limp. 

Blood seeps into his shirt and drips into the dead grass. Dream drops the goat. 

Dream kneels down. “Come now, don’t cry” 

The boy shakes his head. 

“Look at me” Dream grabs his hands “Don’t look away. Look” 

He holds the boy’s chin between his thumb and his forefinger, forces him to look towards the nearly decapitated body of the doe. Its left hind leg spasmed, and then stilled. The boy winced as a tear rolled down his face. 

“Do you see? Do you understand what I’m trying to teach you?” Dream says “If you treat this lightly, that will be you. You understand?” 

The boy nods. Dream pats his cheek. 

“Good. Now, let’s see if we can’t carve up this goat for dinner, hm?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP RANDOM GOAT I HAD TO KILL FOR REASONS incase u guys forgot that dream is the villain :)


	6. there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life

It takes a while for the boy to warm up to him again. They sit by the brook and Dream traces word after word in the sand before he says anything. 

“It was for your own good, you do understand that?” He says this over and over. A man pushing a boulder up a hill only for it to fall over and over. 

“I never meant to upset you, it was to teach you a lesson” 

“I don’t want you to get hurt, can’t you understand that?” 

“Say something. Stop being so difficult.” 

The boy doesn’t meet his eyes. He doesn’t for a long while. 

So instead, they sit by the brook, and Dream writes “I’m Sorry” in ender. 

The boy reads it. He picks up the stick and draws a line through the words. Pats down the sand, and writes a few more sentences. He’s improving fast, but his verb tenses still need work.

“Listen,” Dream says “Look at me” 

The boy does not look. Dream sighs. 

“I’m sorry” Dream says “I just want you to be safe” 

The boy is silent. He has been silent. And he will be for days to come. Dream isn’t sure what he’s done, besides, expose the cruelty of the world that has for so long gone without the boy’s notice. Maybe that is what he did. Maybe he forced the boy to look death in the eyes far too soon, and now he’s suffering the consequence. 

***

Dream leaves again. When he opens the door, he turns and says goodbye to the boy. The boy does not look up. 

When he returns after three days,he is holding another book with blank pages. 

“It’s too cold to be out there anyway,” he says to the boy. The boy shrugs and spins the hands of the broken clock he’s holding. 

Mostly they’re working on sentence structure and grammar now, but occasionally the boy will ask for words, and Dream will give them freely, happy to see he still wants to learn from him even after all he’s done.

***

A winter storm blows in, it starts while they’re out by the stream. The snowflakes fall more as ice and rain than anything. Dream holds his cloak over the boy’s head as they run inside. He does not like the rain, Dream remembers. 

The storm covers the earth in a layer of white before long. The sky and the earth blend together, grey against white. 

“You ought to stay the night,” Agnes tells him. He nods and gets a fire going. She leaves them before long, retreats to her herb and flower-scented room. 

The first words the boy says to him, while they sit by a crackling fire, are not what he expects. 

“What happens when we die?” 

Dream freezes. “Why...why do you ask that?” 

“I’m scared,” The boy says. There is nothing like the honesty of a child who is not yet aware he should be lying. 

“Well,” Dream says “I don’t know”

“I thought you knew everything” 

Dream laughs at that “No, no one knows everything” 

The boy says nothing. 

“I don’t know what happens” Dream admits “It scares me too” 

This is not a lie. The idea of death scares him. He knows he cannot die, he knows this. But the idea that someone could find a way to kill him or a way to trap him in nothingness, is what scares him more than anything. Almost every story of immortals paints them as longing for release, longing for an end. But Dream does not want an end. He will never have done enough to be satisfied. 

He supposes that's simply his nature. 

“You are?” The boy asks. 

“Yes, I think it’s normal to be afraid,” He says “Good, even. It shows you want to live” 

“Okay,” The boy says “I’m sorry” 

“Don’t apologize” Dream says “You’ve nothing to be sorry for” 

The boy doesn’t say anything. Somehow, Dream thinks, he’s made things worse than before. 

***

The next morning, the world is white. Dream gently shakes the boy’s shoulder to wake him up. 

“Get up, We’re going for a walk,” He says. 

The boy pulls on a pair of boots two sizes too large for him, and Dream once again gives him his cloak to keep him warm. 

Dream clears partway of the path, then discards his shovel and flops into the snow. 

“What are you-” The boy sounds a bit panicked

“C’mere” Dream sits up “You can go in the snow, can’t you?” 

The boy frowns.”I can’t”

“Sure you can.” Dream says. 

The boy frowns at him. Dream sighs and holds out his hand. 

“Come on,” He says. 

The boy stares at him. He seems uncertain. For a fleeting moment, Dream is afraid he’s lost his trust forever. Then the boy takes his hand, and together they trudge out into the field. 

“Look” Dream points to a line of tracks in the snow “A fox came through here last night” 

The boy stares at the tracks “What’s fox in ender?”

Dream frowns. “I’m...not sure actually” 

“You don’t know?” Dream turns to look at him and sees the barest hint of a smile on his face. Dream recognizes that smile. He’d missed it. 

“Well, I didn’t say that” 

“You did! You don’t know what it is!” The boy seems delighted by this fact. 

“Okay, well I do know, but I won’t tell you” 

“That's not fair!” The boy says. 

"Maybe you should have been nicer-” A snowball hits his mask. White powder falls down into the neck of his shirt, and he feels the chill on his skin. He wipes the snowflakes off his mask with his sleeve, and for a second he’s mad, then he hears laughter. 

The boy is giggling, the right side of his face is a bit red. When he laughs, he sounds like a long-forgotten memory. Dream can’t help but smile. 

“That-” He says, laughing “That was a good shot” 

“Really?” The boy asks, obviously pleased with himself

“Yeah, Really” Dream leans down, and picks up a fistful of snow, packing it tight. “But not as good as this one.” 

The little skirmish quickly devolves into a full-out fight, and Dream is a bit amazed at how many snowballs the boy manages to hit him with, but of course, he’s going easy on the kid. Apparently, the boy has decided he’s had enough of losing because runs into the forest, Dream’s green cloak trailing behind his shoulders. Dream stands and watches, giving him a head start.

“Come on, that’s not fair,” Dream says once he’s lost the boy in the woods. “What, are you scared of losing or something?” 

He hears a giggle of laughter from somewhere behind him. Dream smiles and grabs another handful of snow. He heads in the direction of the laughter and finds the boy hiding behind a tree. He drops the snowball onto his head, and the child looks up in surprise. 

“Got you,” Dream says. 

“What!” The boy exclaims “I didn’t even hear you! That’s not fair!” 

“I’m very quiet” Dream points out “And you seem very concerned with what’s fair.” 

The boy crosses his arms and looks away. He’s pouting. 

“Come on,” Dream says, “Don’t be like that” 

The boy shakes his head. Dream sighs, and grabs him, lifting him clear off the ground. The boy yelps and half-heartedly bangs a fist onto Dream’s shoulder. 

“Put me down!” He yells

Dream laughs “Nope” 

Dream would feel bad if the boy wasn’t so obviously fighting a smile. He carries him back to the clearing and drops him into the pile of snow he made clearing the path. 

“This is the loser hill,” He says “It’s where losers go” 

“But I don’t wanna be a loser!” The boy says, he clambers his way out of the snow, ice clinging to his clothes. 

“Too bad,” Dream says “You lost”

“No, you did!” The boy grabs Dream’s hands, and yanks on them. He plays along, falling dramatically into the snow. 

“Oh no!” He says “I’m a sore loser!” 

The boy is laughing again. There’s an unfamiliar feeling in Dream’s chest. Not really unfamiliar, per se, just old. Unused. Something he’s pushed off for many many centuries. 

What is it? Fondness? 

Is that why he's doing all of this? 

There is always a why. Always a reason. Sometimes people will call Dream heartless, or cruel, but that carries the implications that he does not have a reason for doing what he does. 

But he does. 

He always does. 

Almost always. 

The boy smiles at him. 

That’s all he wants, he realizes. He wants the boy to smile, and be happy. He wants him to be safe, and to learn how to survive in this world that has been nothing but cruel for the thousands of years Dream has walked its surface. 

He wants, at the very least, for there to be one good thing in this world that keeps trying to kill him. 

One good thing, that’s all he wants. 

When the sun sets, there are two silhouettes made in the snow. One is smaller than the other, and one has a smile drawn where its face would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dream: *feels a slight emotion* what is this? am I having a heart attack? 
> 
> also hi I've been trying to update this fic every other day, but since I have to go back to school this week it'll probably be a little more infrequent. Just a heads up! I'm having a lot of fun writing this so yeah dw abt it being discontinued or anything :]


	7. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I was going to update this yesterday then I had to write a whole six-page essay so UH ANYWAY THIS FIC WILL NOW BE UPDATING ON SATURDAYSSS hopefully I will actually stick to that schedule LMAO  
> thank u for all the love this fic has gotten it really means a lot <3

Dream returns more frequently now. Every time the boy sees him, he drops what he’s doing and runs towards him, and tackles him in a hug. Eventually, Dream starts to hug him back. He’ll drop his bags and kneel down, the boy will wrap his arms around his neck, and Dream will embrace him. Sometimes he’ll lift the boy off the ground and spin him around, and the boy will laugh. It makes Dream’s heart feel lighter.

Spring comes as it always does, in false starts and mud and rain. It rains so often that the boy is stuck inside most days. Dream will come trudging in, boots caked with mud, and he’ll have to hang his cloak to dry by the fire. 

“You look like a drowned mutt” Agnes will say. He’ll laugh, and woof, which makes the boy chuckle and makes Agnes smack the back of Dream’s head with a wooden spoon. 

They spend hours writing words, sounding them out. Verb tense and punctuation carry them through the rest of the winter. When the snow and ice thaw, they spend progressively more time in the forest. The boy is talking again, less afraid than he was. Dream wonders if he’s forgotten. Maybe he’s simply forgiven him. 

“What’re these?” The boy points to mushrooms growing on the side of a tree. He does that often now, asks a lot of questions. 

“Mushrooms” Dream replies. 

“No, they’re on a tree” 

“They’re oyster mushrooms” 

“What’s an oyster?” 

“Like a clam” 

“What’s a clam?”

“Hm” Dream says “A shell. That’s alive. Oysters have pearls inside them sometimes. I’ll bring you one someday if you want.” 

The boy is glaring at the mushrooms. “Do they also grow on trees?” 

“No, they live in the sea” 

“Oh” The boy stands up, dusting the dirt off the knees of his trousers “I don’t want one then” 

“Right, I forgot you’re afraid of the sea” 

“Not afraid,” The boy says “just...thinking about it.” 

“Mm-hm. And what do you think of it?” Dream holds out his hand, and the boy takes it 

“It’s scary” 

Dream laughs “You haven’t even seen it” 

“Hm,” The boy says, copying Dream’s inflection. 

“You’ll see it one day, I’m sure,” Dream says as they walk the familiar trodden down path. 

“How far is it?” 

“Couple hundred miles” Dream says “It’s a few days journey”

“Can we go?” 

“Go where?” 

“The ocean.” 

Dream laughs “No, maybe when you’re older.” 

“How old?” The boy asks. 

“...Just older, alright?” Dream says. He doesn’t want to promise anything. 

The boy doesn’t say anything to that, but he stops walking. There is a long stretch of silence. 

“Where do you go when you leave?” The boy asks. 

Dream sighs. “I go a lot of places.”

“Why can’t I come with you?” 

“I told you when you’re older.” 

The boy frowns at him. “How old?” 

Dream throws up his hands in frustration “Just older! Why do you care? Aren’t you happy here?” 

The boy flinches, and Dream immediately feels a sense of guilt wash over him.

“Sorry,” He says “I’m sorry” 

He kneels down beside the boy and takes his hands in his. 

“When you’re old enough, I swear I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Okay?” He says. It is too close to a promise, but he doesn’t care. 

“You promise?” 

Dream is silent for a moment. 

Promises, promises. 

“I promise” 

\---

The boy doesn’t stop asking questions after that. It’s like once he’s figured out Dream will answer him, he simply hasn’t run out of things to ask. And on top of that, since he’s hanging around so frequently, Agnes has begun to assign him tasks. Things only he can do that an old woman or a young boy couldn’t, like chopping logs or going hunting- on one occasion he ends up on the roof fixing the shingles that were torn off in a storm. Despite his insistence that it’s too dangerous for him to be up there, the boy sits beside him while he works. 

“Why’s the sky blue?” He asks. 

Dream sighs. “If you’re not going to be helpful, you can go back to weeding the garden.” 

The boy furrows his eyebrows. “Okay.”

“Okay, hand me those nails” 

The boy picks them up carefully and hands them to Dream. He sticks the nails between his teeth.

For a few blessed moments, everything is quiet. Dream hammers a few more nails into the shingles. It’s not his best work, but it’ll do. You can see the tops of the trees from here, all the way to the hills that rise above them. They’re slowly becoming greener as spring comes on in full force, the world coming back to life. A fair wind blows, and everything is peaceful. Dream pulls a nail from his teeth and raises his hammer to drive it into the shingle. 

“Dream?” The boy asks. 

“Mmhm?” Dream hums, he angles the hammer right and gets ready to swing. 

“What happened to my parents?” 

Dream brings the hammer down on his thumb, and the pain makes his eyes swim. 

He spits out a string of curses and shakes his hand. It’s bleeding. The blood splatters onto his trousers and the roof. It makes his stomach lurch a little. He tries to stand up, but the shingle under his foot slips, and as he stumbles and falls off the roof and into the rose bushes below, he curses himself for his shoddy craftsmanship. 

\---

“You really must be more careful” Agnes is fussing over his hand, and to make matters worse, according to the old woman and her infinite wisdom, his ankle is fractured from the fall. So, he guesses he'll add that along with the thumb and many cuts from the thorn bushes. Who makes a person immortal but not invulnerable? Who the hell thought that was a good idea? He’s cursing whoever made him like this. 

“You’re lucky you didn’t snap your neck, young man,” She says while wrapping a bandage around his thumb. “Lucky for you. At least it’d be easier to bury you than to set that ankle” 

“Please don’t say that in front of the kid” Dream says. The kid in question is currently anxiously watching as Agnes rolls out more bandages, then wraps them tight around Dream's ankle. He winces. She grumbles something indistinct. 

“Are you gonna die?” The boy asks. 

“No, but he’ll be off that foot for a few days. And so he’ll be useless. That’s as good as dead” Agnes snaps.

“Can we please stop talking about me dying” Dream puts his good hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m not going to die for a very long time, so you can stop worrying.” 

“How long?” The boy tilts his head to the side. He learned that from Dream, didn’t he? 

“Gods give me strength,” Agnes says, looking at Dream and the boy with a glare that could curdle milk. 

\---

After a few days, Dream is beginning to wonder if Agnes is right. He knows he shouldn’t have to do anything, that he doesn’t owe them anything and that he could just leave and never come back if he wanted, but he can’t help but feel useless. The hand he used to write is the same one with a swollen thumb, and the one time he decides to get up and try to put pressure on his ankle, he’s sent reeling back at the bolt of pain that goes up his leg. 

He’s had worse, obviously. When you live such a long life, it’s difficult to prevent serious injuries. He’s taken arrows to the stomach, an ax to the back of his head, and a sword to his neck. He’s been executed before by hanging, guillotine, and a gun to his temple. He’s broken all his bones at least once, and he’s had his fair share of burns and bruises, slash wounds that cut to bone, and blows that left him hacking up blood.

None of it has killed him, none of it even really stuck. He can’t count the number of times he’s had to bleed out on his own, tend to his own wounds with shaking hands. Inevitably his body will pull itself back together, make itself whole again. But it takes time. 

It takes more time when you have a seven-year-old who is suddenly very worried about your well-being. 

“Agnes says if you drink healing potions on an empty stomach, they’ll make you sick,” He says as Dream drinks another bottle of bright pink liquid. Dream finishes it off and shrugs. 

“She’s wrong about a lot of things.” Dream replies simply. 

The boy has also gotten into the habit of bringing him things. He presses a smooth stone into his hand and tells him how it’s so warm outside, the creek is just a few inches deep. He brings him a bit of quartz, the first flower he found, a feather from a crow. Dream keeps them all. He presses flowers and sticks feathers into the pages of their shared journal. 

The boy has taken up most of the writing. Dream will correct his sentences and his pronunciation, and the boy will write. His handwriting is improving, at the very least. 

He still won’t stop asking questions. 

“That verb tense is wrong” Dream points to the writing on the page “It’s ‘was’ not ‘were’” 

“...But were sounds better,” The boy says “Why is it was?” 

“That’s just how it is” Dream replies. And the boy gets that look in his eyes, that frustrated, confused look he gets when he doesn’t get a straight answer. 

“But why?” He asks. 

“Ugh” Dream groans, and leans back in his make-shift cot. It’s positioned across the room from where the boy sleeps, and often he doesn’t sleep. The boy spends a lot of time awake, asking him questions. 

One night, Dream decides to bring it up again. It’s been a week and a half since the incident on the roof. The question has been sitting there in Dream’s mind. How is he meant to explain to the boy that he has no parents, that the closest thing to parents he will ever have is the man who comes and goes as he pleases, who’s betrayed him time and time again? 

“...Where’d you hear about your parents?” Dream asks. He thinks the boy’s pretending to sleep, judging by his breathing, which is anything but even. 

The boy turns to face him. “...Agnes told me” 

“What’d she tell you?” 

“That they died,” The boy says. “Because of me. Cuz' I was a mistake.” 

Dream sits up abruptly. “What?” 

“She said they-”

“No, no I heard you.” Dream sighs. “That...That isn’t true.” 

The boy looks away. “It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not. That’s not true, I don’t know why she told you that-” Because he said it. Because you told her that, he thinks. Stupid. 

“Look at me.” He says, trying to make his voice gentler, “Hey” 

The boy sits up, pulls his legs up to his chest, and rests his head on his knees. “What?” 

Dream stands up, and half walks-half limps his way across the room, and sits down beside him. 

“Your parents…” He says, trying to find the right words. “They...They loved you.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. They would have kept you if they could but…” He trails off. 

“Why didn’t they?” The boy asks. Dream sighs. 

“When I knew them, they traveled around a lot” Dream said “Their lives were unsteady. I-They knew they couldn’t raise a child like that. They wanted to-I know they wanted to keep you but... They couldn’t. So they gave you to me.” 

“To you?” The boy says, he moves a bit closer, his eyes wide “I thought they gave me to Agnes”

“No, I brought you here,” Dream says, and it’s almost the truth. “You were just a baby, and I carried you all the way here. I doubt you can recall it, you were a handful, I remember that much.” He ruffles the boy’s hair. 

The boy frowns, his gaze turned towards the ground 

“If they wanted to keep me so bad, why didn’t they?” He says “What did I do?” 

Dream’s heart sinks “Nothing. You-You didn’t do anything wrong”

The boy says nothing, he stares at the floor. 

“They loved you,” Dream says “They really did.”

"...I don't get it," The boy says quietly, voice barely above a whisper. 

“I-They wanted you to have a normal life. A happy life. And they couldn’t give it to you so…” He sighs “They did their best”

“And they died?” 

Dream hesitates. He balls his hands into fists, holds the tension of the room in his shoulders. 

“Yes. They’re gone now.”

“What were they like?” 

He knew this was coming. He knew and still, he didn’t want to think about it. Dream tries to collect himself. 

“Your mother was..she was a lot like you. She was smart, and-and she was very stubborn” He says “I think you two would have gotten along, you know” 

“Really?”

“Yeah, really”

“What about my dad?” 

Dream bites back a wince. “He-he was brave. Foolhardy, some might say. He’d rush into things without thinking. He had this-this ambitious nature. You know what that means?” 

The boy shakes his head. 

Dream grins “He was a dreamer. He had these lofty ideals, I don’t know if they were ever possible but...he tried. He really did.”

The boy is smiling a bit. It almost makes it worth it. 

“You have his eyes-or, you have one at least.” Dream points out. 

“I do?” The boy says

“Yeah, you take after him-” Dream’s voice cracks a bit “You take after him a lot, I think.” 

“Hm,” The boy hums. “So you really knew them?” 

Dream is silent for a moment. Outside, there is no moon, and clouds cover the stars. It reminds him of that night. Reminds him of black obsidian towers and the thrum of a heartbeat within a shell. Potential made manifest, made into something else. Maybe he ruined it. Maybe he took that pure potential and twisted it into something it wasn’t meant to be, but if it was meant to be anything, he doesn’t care. He’d kill that dragon a thousand times over, split his soul into a thousand pieces before he took back what he did. 

“I knew them better than anyone,” Dream replies. He takes a breath. "You were not a mistake. I want you to know that." 

The boy is silent, but he nods. 

And Dream is glad he can tell him this, at least, because It’s one of the only things he’s said that isn’t a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: hmm how do i make a scenario where dream would have to be stuck in one place for a while  
> me:....  
> me ah yes, I'll push him off a roof 
> 
> (also hi hello i am ignoring how dream's whole "we could become immortal" thing from tommy's stream invalidates this whole fic shhhh its ok it's fine we are in au territory now)


	8. In action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a god!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayo new chapter hours who up
> 
> I'd like to say in advance, I'm sorry for this one.
> 
> :)

Summer comes in full force, the sun beating down on the clearing in the woods. 

When his ankle heals, Dream leaves for a week for business reasons, and comes back with more coins in his pocket and blood on his hands. 

Dream deals in blood and favors, he has many irons in many fires, and there’s not a person he’s met that doesn’t owe him something. He’s made a web across the world of favors and whenever he pleases, he can pull on one of those strings. 

“Why?” They always ask “Why are you doing this?” 

Why? There are dozens of reasons why. While one man might have wronged him in the past, another is simply a powerful ally he wants to take advantage of. Revenge, personal gain. These are all reasons for why. But there is one good reason as to why he does everything. 

Power. Power, and control. When you have eternity to spend building favors, building your reputation, you can amass enough power to be more than a man, more than a king, more than a god. He happens to know the god of this world, and even they owe him something. 

For the centuries he’s been alive, he’s shunned connection. Of course, one can’t live without occasionally calling on others, but that’s all he does. Form passing bonds with mortals, ones he can shed easily, without remorse. He doesn’t want that connection. And what would be the point anyways? The lives of mortals are so short, so futile. A few decades and then what? They simply fade away, and for what? Nothing. Their lives were meaningless. Their lives were short. Their lives were insignificant in the face of eternity. They were tools to use. There wasn’t one mortal he had met that didn’t owe him something. 

Except for one. 

His bounty brings him to a seaside town. Once he’s done painting the man’s house red with his and his family’s blood, he goes down to the shore. The town is silent as he walks through it, and the rush of the sea is a welcome break from the lack of sound. 

“The hell are you doing?” One of his fellow bounty hunters asks. They’re carving up the body, ignoring the fact it was Dream who put an arrow through the man’s neck. It doesn’t matter. Dream isn’t doing this for money anyway. 

“I need to find something,” He says. He starts walking along the shore. He picks up a shell, discards it. The best one, he decides. That’ll be the one he brings to him. 

“Yeah?” The man asks, jogging after him “What?” 

“A gift”

The man laughs “What, you got a girl waiting for you?” 

Dream chuckles. “No, No. Nothing like that” 

“Uh-huh. Then what?” 

Dream stares at the man, knowing he can’t see his eyes. He looks uncomfortable. “Why don’t you go help with the bodies. I don’t want to spend the night in prison” 

\---

The boy squeals his name and comes running across the yard when he returns. Dream leans down and picks him up, and holds him tightly. 

“Brought you something,” He says. The boy blinks at him expectantly. 

He holds up two fists “Which hand?” 

The boy thinks for a moment, then points to his left hand. “That one” 

He opens it, there’s nothing. He closes it. 

“Try again” 

The boy points at his right hand. He unfolds it. “Nope.” 

“What?” The boy asks. Dream laughs and opens his left hand, there’s a seashell. 

“I know you said you didn’t want anything from the sea, but I thought you’d at least want to see one” He drops it in the boy’s small palm. The child stares at it, still quiet. 

Dream tilts his head. “You don’t like it?” 

“I…” the boy says. He turns the shell over, examining it. “It’s pretty” 

“Yeah, That’s what I thought too.” 

“It’s a sea-shell?” 

“Yeah. Little crabs live in them and stuff.” Dream says. When the boy gives him a blank look, he sighs “A crab is like a big bug. They live on the beach in shells, and they have claws like” He makes a claw with his hand “Like this” 

“Oh,” The boys says “I’ve heard of those”

“Yeah?” 

“Mm-hm” The boy nods. 

Dream smiles, although he knows he can’t see it. He pats the boy’s head. “You’re getting taller. Since did you start growing so fast?” 

The boy grins back at him “I’m gonna be taller than you!”

Dream laughs “No, no I doubt that”

(He is wrong. Years later, he will be proven wrong. But the boy will be older by then, and he will slouch his shoulders to seem smaller, to seem more normal, more human. It took Dream centuries to understand humanity and even longer to fully blend in with them, but in a matter of months the boy has made himself a home with these people, carved out a place among those who are nothing like him. He hunches his shoulders and rarely bares his fangs. Dream will hate him for it.) 

\---

(They name everything in the forest and surrounding areas, in ender and English. Their list grows long. Grass, trees, stones, dirt, sky, stars, don't trip on that root, watch where you're walking, okay? Let's start again, shall we? Leaves, flowers, goats, brook, an old stone wall built a long time ago, mushroom, songbird, the edge of the woods, don’t go past this point, okay? It’s to keep you safe, okay? You do understand that I’m trying to keep you safe, Right? There’s nothing out there anyway. Yes I know there are oceans and mountains and forests and villages and towns and cities and people but none of that is for you. 

None of the things Dream names are for the nameless boy he visits. 

There is a compass that spins and spins and spins, never finding true north.) 

\---

It is a hot summer day, and Dream is up in a tree holding a smoldering branch around the outside of a beehive. The boy watches from afar, worried at every insect that flies past him. 

Dream furrows his brow. It’s difficult work, usually, he wouldn’t put this much effort in for a few combs of honey, but this is different. It’s always different. 

He jabs the hive with a knife, creating a small opening. The bees fly lazily around, sedated by the smoke. He reaches inside and cuts loose some of the combs. 

His boots hit the ground with a thud, and his ankle twinges slightly, but he ignores it. The boy watches with wide eyes. He’s always watching. 

“Come on,” He says, holding out his hand for the boy to take “Let’s get these home” 

They walk back to the cottage, on the way, they start over with their list. The boy’s enunciation is improving, he speaks ender almost like a first language now. Dream is glad that he can at least give him this. If he has no other part of his past, he at least has this. 

They name everything in the area, except for one. 

“Dream?” The boy asks. Dream is grinding up the combs, trying to drain the honey from the wax. 

“Yes?” Dream replies absentmindedly. He’s more focused on purifying the honey than anything else considering the trouble he went through to get it. 

“How come I don’t have a name?” the boy asks. 

Dream fumbles with the bowl he’s holding, nearly dropping it, then finally he sets it down hard on the table. 

His heart is pounding. He can’t help the shock that overcame him, but in some way, he was expecting this. They’ve spent weeks naming things. Of course, it would come to this. One last nameless thing. 

“What?” He asks. His voice is harsher than he intended it to be. 

The boy cringes a bit. He turns his gaze downward, wringing his hands. “You and Agnes both have names, right?” 

Dream composes himself from the initial shock. He takes a breath. 

“Yes. We do.” 

The boy is silent for a second 

“How come?” 

“I assume Agnes got her name from her parents,” He says. He knows this because he knew Agnes’ mother, and grandmother, and great-grandmother. He knows they all in fact had the same name. Mortals are so sentimental. 

“What about you?” 

Dream frowns. What about him? He doesn’t remember where his name came from. That is from the part of his life that is foggy to him. He has a perfect memory for everything besides his beginnings, though it never bothers him until he’s asked questions like this. He usually makes up an answer. 

“...We’re not talking about this” He goes back to crushing honeycomb. 

“But I want to know,” the boy says. “Why won’t you tell me?” 

“I said we’re not talking about this” 

“How come?” 

How come? Dream almost laughs. There's a reason this boy does not have a name. A reason why nobody wants to give him one. And it will break his heart, Dream knows that. 

“Stop asking.” He says, trying his best to be strict. 

“Why?”

Dream slams the bowl down on the table and takes a breath. 

“You want to know?” Dream asks, malice rising in his voice. 

The boy is afraid. He can see that much. He’s reminded of many things. A moonless sky. An eclipse of a soul. A compass that spins and spins and spins. 

The child nods anyway, despite the fear in his eyes. 

Dream is regretful before he says it. He knows he should not say it. He does anyway. He has never been good at that. Self-control. 

He supposes part of him wants the boy to be afraid. After all, isn’t that the best way to teach him? He wants to keep him safe, to keep him nameless and alone in a remote cottage. It is a selfish want, and he knows this. He knows this. It is a result of guilt, and he knows this. If you never give a name to something, it's not really real. It doesn't really exist. nobody can hold him to it, he can't care for something that isn't real. 

“My name came from the fact that I’m a mercenary. You know what that means?” 

The boy shakes his head. 

“People hire me to kill people. Because I’m good at killing people. Do you understand that?”

The boy nods again. 

“Tell me you understand” 

“Y-yes”

Dream pushes on, not caring at this point what he might say. “For a long time, the way I’d do it is I’d break in during the night, and slit their throats while they’re sleeping. That’s why I walk so quietly, you see?” 

The boy shakes his head. He’s looking away as if he doesn’t look then what Dream’s saying won’t be real. 

Dream moves his chair, sits down beside him. 

“You can’t ask a question and then start crying when someone gives you the answer,” he says “I thought you wanted to know where I got my name?”

The boy shakes his head again, his eyes shut tight. 

“Look at me,” Dream says, and for a second he thinks he’s going to have to grab the child as he did before, like when he drew his blade across that goat's neck. But then the boy looks up at him, eyes full of tears. 

“I got my name because I’m a killer. Because people know me as one.” Dream says “That’s all a name is. What people know you as. Do you want to know why you don’t have a name?” 

The boy says nothing. 

“Well?”

He could say no, he could just shake his head. And Dream would have gone back to crushing honeycomb. They would have had it in their tea, and the boy wouldn’t frown at the bitter taste, because it wouldn’t be bitter at all. They would name everything, they would write down everything, and Dream would have apologized. They would have gone on like they had if the boy had said no. 

But he doesn’t. 

“Yes,” he says, his voice shaking like the branch a songbird sits on, singing a melancholy tune. 

Dream sighs, and lets the boulder roll down the hill, readies himself to start again. 

“You don’t have a name because nobody cared enough to give you one” Dream states simply. “You don’t need one because it doesn’t matter what you’re called when only two people will ever know you. You’ll never have one because neither of us will give you one. Okay?” 

The boy is crying. Dream feels guilt weigh him down. He is weighed down. He cares, he cares so deeply and it has made him into a fool. He has made a grave mistake. When did it go wrong? How do you define the beginning of a bond? 

Dream doesn't like connection. He doesn’t like to be tied to someone, to be tied down. He is alone, he has always been alone. But now he is more than alone, he realizes. He is so, so lonely and yet-

And yet. 

And yet he cannot bring himself to trust anyone, to love anyone. To hold that affection in his heart for another soul is to weigh himself down. To anchor himself. It is to split his soul further, to give up something. Hasn't that been what all this is for? To scrape together any power he has, to pry it from the clutches of men who would misuse it, to fight for it, clawing and biting, to go to his death fighting, kicking, and screaming. He wants to keep hold of anything he can, to hoard it and keep it for as long as he can. For so long Dream has had nothing, nothing to tie him down. Nothing to stop him, nothing that could stop him. No anchor, no home. No love for any living creature. 

And isn’t that what he holds in his heart for this boy? A feeling he hasn’t known in a long time. Family. He loves this child like a son, like a brother, twin souls, yet as different as day and night. 

He wants to stop. To settle down, to stay. To have honey in his tea and let his armor grow dusty in some back closet. He wants to see this child grow, to see him live a life, a normal life, that Dream could never have. He wants to let himself have this. 

He longs for it, but he cannot have it. He doesn't want it. He does. His existence is full of ironies.

This is why he leaves. Why he leaves a crying boy with a soul like the golden halo of an eclipse. This is why he leaves him nameless and unknown, doomed to live and die in the same small circle. A compass that spins and spins, never pointing homewards. 

He’s doomed himself as well, he thinks. He doomed himself from the start. Dream curses himself over and over and over again for doing what he did. He will never forgive himself for what he did under that moonless sky. 

And he will never forgive himself for leaving. He will never be able to reconcile either of those things. 

But life is long, and any guilt he has will leave him, eventually. 

He knows this, it has happened many times before. It has happened, it will happen. He is a man, rolling a boulder to the top of a hill, doing the same things over and over and calling it anything but what it is. Calling it a life worth living. A hollow and lightless world, devoid of anything meaningful. 

When he leaves, he says nothing. The boy says nothing. The house is silent. 

To his credit, he makes it a few miles before his own emotions get the best of him, and he stops, slumped against a tree, as he cries his first tears in millennia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream: yes i love this child. no I will not refrain from emotionally traumatizing him as much as I can
> 
> ngl this green bastard really do be annoying me
> 
> also tHANKS FOR ALL THE ATTENTION THIS FIC HAS GOTTEN I REALLY DIDN'T EXPECT THIS BUT JUST BEAR WITH ME IT'LL BE GOOD I SWEAR


End file.
